Questions to Ask Any Essential Oils Company

  1. Does their company own any farms on which to raise herbs for oils? And if they do, are they new farms on land formerly polluted with herbicides, pesticides, and chemicals that contain residuals from the past, or are they farming land that is clean, which has never been cultivated or has been untilled for at least the last 50 years?
  2. Does their company have their own fully equipped testing laboratory to verify an oil's composition?
  3. If their company purchases oils from outside suppliers, do they visit the distilleries and farms of those suppliers regularly to observe if the herbs are grown organically, i.e. without pesticides, herbicides, or chemical fertilizers?
  4. Do they know if the grower has a testing laboratory on the farm to determine when the crop is at its peak for oil harvesting?
  5. If they have suppliers instead of growing their own, do they know if the crops were actually harvested at their peak time and, if so, was there an inordinate delay in taking them to the still and into the cookers?
  6. Do they know if their distillery personnel understand the art and science of distilling, exactly how to pack the cookers, how to administer the steam, how to maintain minimum temperatures and pressures throughout the cooker, and how to continuously monitor the process throughout distillation to make sure the oil produced contains all of its components in the proper proportions?
  7. If their supplier makes a mistake in the distillation or harvesting processes that results in an inferior grade of oil, does that supplier sell the oil anyway or do they discard it?
  8. Do they know if their suppliers avoid supplementing the distillation process with solvents to extract additional oil from the plant matter?
  9. Do they know if their suppliers bottle their oils directly from the distillery without modifying the composition of the natural oil by adding anything or taking anything away?
  10. Do they know if their company has tested their company's oils side by side with Young Living oils in the same lab to make a fair comparison? And if so, where is the data?